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Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism Quinn Slobodian Harvard University Press State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States—and the Nation Alexander Hertel-Fernandez Oxford University Press This article appears in the Summer 2019 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . Are democracy and capitalism compatible? For much of the postwar era, mainstream economists, foreign-policy decision-makers, and the political commentariat believed not only in the intrinsic compatibility of a market economy and a liberal democratic polity, but in the idea that each strengthened the other. But that faith has been shattered in the years since 2008, by the rise of far-right political parties in many liberal democracies and the anti-democratic abuse of political power by elites in North America and Europe. Rather than capitalism and democracy being soulmates, political life seems a three-way battle...

This article appears in the Summer 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . The tax code has long punished marriage. A married couple filing a joint return stood to pay a slightly higher rate than two individuals with the same incomes would pay if they were filing separately, especially if the incomes were close to equal. Early on in the tax reform process, House Speaker Paul Ryan bragged, “We’re going to get rid of the marriage penalty.” But the 2017 Republican Tax Act achieved that goal only for middle-income Americans, leaving low-income households penalized for doing exactly what conservatives admonish them to do—get married and start a family. Prior to the Tax Act, many couples found themselves in a higher tax bracket after getting married. In addition, many means-tested benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit are designed around a similar assumption—that the husband would earn more than the wife...

This article appears in the Spring 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . When the Democratic “blue wall” stretching from Wisconsin through Michigan and Ohio to Pennsylvania fell on November 8, 2016, its breach reflected a growing socioeconomic gulf between the prosperous coastal states and depressed non-metro America. The vast majority of economic growth since 2008 has flowed to the coasts, while the Midwest and rural America have seen spikes in deaths of despair, divorce, an opiate crisis, and a moribund economy. It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, from roughly 1880 to 1980—an era Trump’s white supporters may have in mind when they demand America be Made Great Again—incomes of different regions more nearly converged. Much of U.S. manufacturing and its supply chain was based in the Midwest. Thanks to unionization, a good deal of basic industry paid decent wages. Meanwhile, other industries such as textiles and...

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in late September, hospitals across the mainland United States already faced intermittent shortages of intravenous fluids. But the Category 4 hurricane severely damaged several manufacturing plants owned by Baxter International, one of the major manufacturers of the small IV bags that deliver those fluids, setting in motion a major national shortage. Nearly six months later, the scarcity of IV bags has reached crisis levels, illustrating what damage to a supply chain concentrated in Puerto Rico can do to one of the world’s most advanced health-care systems. This development underscores an inescapable reality: A strong sector may have great doctors, nurses, and hospitals, but if one link in the supply chain breaks, people suffer. IV bags, simple plastic bags that are used to mix and deliver a liquid medication or salt water to patients through an intravenous line, are involved in nearly every facet of patient care in a hospital. Health-...

book_cover.png W hen Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded Obama-era policies in early January, which had prevented federal prosecutors from pursuing marijuana cases in states that had legalized or decriminalized the drug, the staunch conservative rekindled the debate over a drug that some researchers and users believe is less toxic than alcohol. In Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America , independent historian Emily Dufton, a former American Council of Learned Societies fellow at the Center for Public Integrity , details how 1960s social movements fueled both the marijuana decriminalization effort and the reactionary “parent movement” that sought to recriminalize the drug. She cautions that today’s marijuana activists should view marijuana’s history as a pendulum swinging between more liberal marijuana policies and harsher criminal penalties . The American Prospect spoke to Dufton about how attitudes toward the drug have evolved in...